I’m going back to Scotland, and I have been rereading the history. However, I am not quite certain how a castle can be destroyed after a siege. Granted, trebuchets and rams may knock a few parts around, and the castle could be over run so all the defenders are killed. It may be burned so all wooden supports are destroyed.
But- would that wreck it? It seems conceivable that if the stone part is still there, it wouldn’t take much to make it again a fortress. Or where they actually blown up?
The obvious question is why would you want to destroy it in the first place? If you’re in the process of winning a war, then surely you’d want to keep the castle so that you guys can use it.
Look at all the castles that weren’t destroyed (I guess that’s a good reason to go to Scotland). You don’t waste real estate.
Actually, Scottish history has an interesting example of castles being systematically destroyed. During Robert the Bruce’s campaigns against English rule, his consistent policy (with exceptions at Berwick and Dumbarton) was to destroy each castle after it was captured. Given the differing strengths of the two sides, it was easier for the English to retake a castle than for the Scots to do so. As the occupying power, such fortified strongholds were also necessary for the English in a way they weren’t to their opponents. Bruce thus felt he was better off liberating and ruling a Scotland without castles.
The 14th century was, of course, quite a while back and there are still plenty of (beautiful) castles that have been built in Scotland since. Often on the sites that Bruce cleared.
As noted, you could burn all the wooden structures; even many apparently stone buildings would have interior wooden supports – this would include the great keep. As for the curtain walls, I guess you’d just have masons go up and start taking stones out from the top down.
In the World Wars, many castles were either bombed from the air or dynamited. For instance, Chateau de Coucy, a beautiful castle with the largest round keep in Europe, was dynamited by the Germans in WWI.
They used to “mine” them - which meant digging tunnels under the foundations until they collapsed.
I think this was actually the original use of the verb ‘undermine’, before its use was broadened. Sorry to undermine you…
Usually a castle is built in a particular spot because it’s a good spot for a castle (access to fresh water, easily defendable position, important roads in the area, etc. so it’s not at all strange to find newer castles on the sites of older ones. Same thing happens with cities. History has several examples of a city being destroyed and a new one being built right on top of it (for a recent, literal example of this, go visit Old Seattle, and then go downstairs and visit the Seattle Underground.
But yeah, sometimes you just destroy a castle because you don’t want the enemy to have it, and you can’t hold onto it yourself. An example of what might happen if you don’t destroy a castle under these circumstances is the Alamo. After the Texians took the city of San Antonio, General Houston sent orders for the Alamo to be burned and abandoned, Colonel Travis ignored the orders, and the city of San Antonio was later retaken by General Santa Anna, with most of the Texian defenders being killed in the process. Of course, the Alamo wasn’t a proper fort, with one of the walls collapsed and replaced by a wooden fence, but there were far fewer Texians than would have been necessary to defend anything that size from a coordinated attack in any case.
Why did they do that? Undoubtedly Coucy might have been the center of a newer fortress, but the old castle would not have been a military threat.
It would be to anyone trying to move through the area. A castle would present 20th century infantry many of the same advantages that it would to soldiers in the middle ages. While it would be somewhat less effective as a defense against modern artillery, it would still be very useful for providing cover from enemy fire. A group of soldiers with rifles and machine guns holed up in a castle can ruin an otherwise perfectly good day for a group of enemy infantry trying to attack the town the castle is in. Keep in mind castles that tend to be located in good places for fortifications, so you’d not want to leave a perfectly good one lying around for your enemy if you didn’t have any use for it.
Some kings, like Henry II of England, would deliberately force their barons to destroy whatever fortifications they had built. This kept the barons in line since they would then have nowhere to hole up if they were considering rebellion. As for the actual wrecking process, crowbars, hammers and chisels can unbuild a structure just as well as build it.
Except that the only reason it wouldn’t be a military threat is that it can be easily dynamited. So if a bunch of enemy soldiers are holed up in a castle, what do you do, given that you have dynamite?
I’m not a demolitions engineer, but it’s alot easier to destroy a building with exposives if you have access to the cellars from the inside, or can dig holes to place the explosives in. Otherwise, much of the force of the explosion is going dissipate harmlessly.
In other words, putting 100 sticks of dynamite buried underneath or against the key structural supports of the building and setting it all of together is going to get better results than lobbing one stick 100 times at the building from 50’ away.
Why 50’ away? Cause the guys with the rifles and machin guns defending the building will shoot you if you emerge from cover and try to get closer.
Sheesh. a lot, not “alot”
I think you are underestimating the amount of damage these things do. I saw an interesting show on TV once where they built trebuchets (or maybe catapults) and heaved huge stones at a replica castle wall. This wall was built just like an authentic old time castle wall (earth inside, big stone blocks, you name it - and all about 12’ thick), although it was only about 20 feet long (hey, castle walls are expensive to build these days…). Anyway, the first boulder aimed a bit high but pretty much completely tore off the wooden structure at the top designed to protect the archers. Once they got the aim going, I was very much amazed at just how huge the holes were that they were putting in the walls with each shot. Siege engines are going to do a lot of the work of reducing the castle to rubble for you, before you even take the castle.
Siege engines were built on location, and destroyed after they were done because they are too big and difficult to move anywhere. I image that if you wanted to completely flatten the castle after you took it, all you would have to do is keep using the siege engines on it until it’s been pretty much reduced to gravel. Then knock over the siege engines and get rid of them in a nice bon fire and call it a day.
You will however leave a lot of stones lying about, which would make a convenient source of building materials for someone who wants to build a new castle there.
I don’t know if this was ever actually done in Scotland or anywhere else, but it seems simple enough to me.
Many Scottish castles were actually blown up after or during the Jacobite rebellions.
For those of you not familiar with them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobite_rebellions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobite_Rising
Many Jacobite’s ended up emigrating to the Colonies.
At about what year would gunpowder have been commonly available, so that it would be more likely for the castle to be blown up rather than smashed to bits?
Wide use on Cannons by 1600 but Shore Castles would come under bombardment by sea before that. Carriage mount guns started coming into use in the 1400’s and wide use by 1500’s. Most Castles you see were brought low in the age of gunpowder.
Older hill forts, Roman Forts and 12th century stone castles would be brought low by sapping and fire after the castle was taken. The Trebuchet & catapults were siege engines used to breach the defenses.
While in Scotland I toured close to 50 National Trust Sights. Over 30 were Castles. If you go anywhere near Aberdeen be sure to visit Dunnottar Castle
A Wonderful old Ruin, The castle was dismantled in 1718 after the possessions of the 10th Earl Marischal were forfeited subsequent to his part in the Jacobite Rising.
Seattle is a different case. It wasn’t that an abandoned city site was re-occupied because of its geographical benefits. The streets were raised as part of a civic program and the former ground floors of existing buildings went underground.
I actually visited the site of Dunnottar castle in 2002. However it was so windy, the walk across the exposed trail made it a little dangerous to approach so we never got inside.
It was the most awesome castle we were in. Something about the old ruin jutting out to sea. It was awe-inspiring and interesting for the details left.